The present invention is in the field of fowl harvesting and handling equipment and is specifically directed to an apparatus for receiving fowl and discharging desired quantities of same into individual coop units. The term "fowl" as used hereinafter is used in its broadest generic sense and, while the preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated in conjunction with broiler chickens, it should be understood that the invention is usable with other fowl including, but not limited to, turkeys, guinea hens, ducks, geese, and the like.
It is the present conventional practice in commercial broiler production systems to employ hand labor for harvesting live broilers. A crew of approximately eight worker can normally catch and coop between 5,000 and 7,000 broilers per hour. Each bird is individually caught by hand and placed in coops for transport to the processing plant. The most widely employed predominant type of coop utilized in the industry is constructed from wood, plastic, and or metal and is capable of containing from ten to fifteen birds per coop. Recently, large multi-compartment coop units consisting of multi-tiered coops consisting of vertical banks of stacked coop compartments have been employed for receiving approximately forty broilers per coop compartment. Such coop units are mechanically handled at the processing plant to provide substantial labor savings and increased efficiency with the consequent saving being approximately twenty to thirty per cent in labor costs. Unfortunately, the use of such coop units does not provide equivalent cost savings in the harvesting and cooping of the broilers using the conventional manual procedures. Another shortcoming of the conventional procedures is that the fowl are frequently bruised or damaged during the catching and cooping operation.
Therefore, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a new and improved fowl cooping apparatus and method.